Virgin Atlantic & Virgin Holidays - VERY BAD SERVICE

Zoo_TV

Hi - I thought I'd share my tale about these two companies and if you have any ideas

Basically I booked my honeymoon with Virgin Holidays to go to LA and Hawaii. The honeymoon was for 14 nights and cost £4000.

On the day of departure we turned up at the airport 5 hrs early to check in, bearing in mind this was in late August and there were all the security issues etc.

We got to LA and my bag wasn't there. In the bag were all my clothes, the creams for my Eczema (as liquids weren't allowed) and all the camera chargers. We filled in the lost baggage form at the Virgin stand and were told it would turn up the following day. The bag didn't turn up. When we asked the Virgin Holidays rep to chase this she said she couldn't as Virgin Atlantic couldn't release details to a 3rd party. All the numbers we were given lead to an Indian Call Centre where you would spend 25 mins min. on hold. They would "e-mail" London. We ended up staying up through the night trying to chase this as the call centre said it was not possible to call a UK mobile back -which meant either we had to wait in the hotel room for a call or call whilst we were out buying essentials.

The bag finally turned up 5 days later. Virgin Holidays didn't care. When we got back to Heathrow, we complained in person at the Baggage Services desk who said Customer Serrvices would call us back in 48 hrs. There has been no such call. According to the file, the reason why the luggage was left behind is because the white check in label put on at the airport came off. Despite the fact that all other labels detailing flight and hotel info was still intact!

In fact the only time they have responded is when I've wriiten to Richard Branson. Virgin Holidays say it is the responsibility of Virgin Atlantic and any compensation for lost time is down to them. Virgin Atlantic have stated thier standard policy is a one off payment of £50, but they will give £100 and 5000 frequent flyer miles.

I feel this does not compensate for the loss of time and enjoyment. I do have travel insurance, and claimed the maximum for clothing, sunblock etc, but the cost of calls to Virgin has amounted to £200 alone

So what next?

Do I take this down the legal avenue and just inform Virgin that this will go to court or give them one last chance. Would wanting 1/3 of the holiday cost be adequate as I lost 1/3 of my honeymoon trying to chase this? Or are there any other alternatives/precedents set?

Of course Martin if you want to publicise this, perhaps this is a good enough story?

I'm well hacked off with Virgin at the minute!!!

trets77

this sort of service merits a letter to the Times IMO . the Times travel section to be precise ( published saturdays and Sundays).

they have a page dedicated to exposing this kind of shoddy service. they often get results for featured cases

i have been with Virgin to states myself and was less than impressed by the service although it does not compare to your woes i would still like to add "my 2 cents"

for one the cut our holiday short by a night which we had to chase them to sort out. plus they promised us best seats in the house if we booked a show with them....when we arrived on the night i knew i had been lied to when the tickets were row X ( no joke !!) 10 mins of very fierce complaining later we got the "best seats in the house" by making the Rep call the Show mananger.

also would not touch them with a barge pole if car hire comes into the equation. i refer you to small print at the back of your USA virgin brouchure goes something like this

"Dollar does not regonise ANY car hire insurance other than the one it sells itself"

this is basically a gun to your head saying you HAVE to buy our extremly crap ( i.e loads of exclusions) but extremley expensive (£300 extra for a average 2 week holiday ). whats more they can slap you with this after you book and when you get there if you haven;t got your eyes open .

call me cynical but i won,t be using them again

Travelbag are much better and open company IMO

and thats my 2 cents lol

Good luck with your fight !!!!

Zoo_TV

Thanks for the tale and the idea of the Times - I was going to try the Independent, but another paper is no harm either.

As for package deals, this is only the 2nd ever package deal I've bought (the last was in 1995). I very rarely buy off the rep (apart from a tour round LA)

To give you an idea of how much the rep prices are inflated...

If I went to buy a 3 day Disneyland pass (for both Disney and the California Adventure Park), Virgin Holidays wanted over £110 each.

If I went to the Disneyland website, I could buy a 5 day pass for $179.00. A single day pass on the door is almost $60. So you can see how much off a rip off these "extras" are

I've been sufficently annoyed to call Trading Standards and to activate my legal cover through my house insurance on this. I think publicity is a good way to shame Virgin into taking this seriously - I'd like to know who thinks £100 and 5000 Virgin Frequent Flyer points is acceptable... and what would the general consensous of adequate compensation would be based on other experiences - all helps with the reply I'll send back to Virgin

_Andy_

Might be worth posting this on the Virgin Holidays section of https://www.v-flyer.com for some input

Zoo_TV

Response from Virgin Atlantic...

"As you have made a claim through your private travel insurerers, the Montreal Convention prevents a claim being made against both the insurance company and the airline at the same time as the insurance company is entitled to claim against airline....

The airline is also unable to accept liability for consequential loss such as Telephone Calls etc..."

Virgin Baggage Services said to claim and "we will sort the rest out" when we asked at Heathrow:mad:

_Andy_

You're welcome for the link, by the way.

Zoo_TV

I've found a way to talk to a UK Customer Service agent - On the phone menu, go for buying your duty free...

I spent 45 minutes on the phone to a senior manager from Baggage Services explaining the whole saga again... thier position is now - we want to reach a conclusion but we can't put a value on your time...

and the only person to escalate to is Steve Ridgeway, the Chief Exec. I asked what the next level of management is to escalate to and apparantly it is the Chief Exec - so no operations director or equivalent - I find that hard to believe!

I said that they had better escalate this or it will go to court and the press - thier response - it's your perogative and although you would get sympathy from outside, I'm not authorised to compensate that highly (no figure was mentioned) - in other words - hopefully you'll give up.... not likely!:mad:

gandalfmuppet

Contact BBC Watchdog, Times money column on a sunday sorts a lot of problems out, how about emailing bbc breakfast - that Declan chap in the morning might be interested. Alternatively take them to court and make sure the press are outside...

Zoo_TV

Just had a look a the OFT web site. It turns outr nthat Virgin Holidays are liable for all incidents on a pavckage holiday whether it is caused by a 3rd party or a supplier.

This is in direct defiance of what Virgin Holidays have said all along - that it is the airline's ;problem and I have to talk driectly to the airline. I'm writing a very snotty letter quoting from the OFT web site and sending it on to the Times, Independent etc.

Who will ever wantr to book a package holiday again? I would have been better off on my own!

jonesMUFCforever

Had a problem with Virgin last year when our flight out to Florida was delayed by 24 hours. We lost a day out of holiday despite paying for 14 nights hotel etc etc.
First response was a joke letter - no compensation
Second letter no better claim on your travel insurance
Third letter sorry we cannot be responsible etc etc
Fourth letter threatened them with small claims they didn't believe me
Did small claims online cost me £30 which I got back as they did not submit a defence in time and paid up full amount of what I claimed.
Throughout the process Virgin holiday were saying that it was Virgin Atlantic' s fault and vice versa.
I even got an e-mail from a legal knobhead from them saying they were going to defend my claim even after they had paid out!!!!
It was a particular sweet moment for me to respond to that one.

trets77

I even got an e-mail from a legal knobhead from them saying they were going to defend my claim even after they had paid out!!!!
It was a particular sweet moment for me to respond to that one.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: priceless

so passing the buck is the name of the game hey. i,m not going with them again end of story.